With Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater out now and available on current gen platforms, it’s likely that Konami may be thinking about which title from its iconic franchise could be an option for its next remake.
While Naked Snake’s debut adventure, which set him on the road to becoming Big Boss, is a great choice for introducing the franchise to a potentially new demographic of players while giving veterans a heady dose of nostalgia balanced with current-gen goodness, choosing another title for the same treatment could be a tricky venture.
Despite a dearth of options at its disposal, the viability of each title in the Metal Gear Solid lineup brings several variables that could pose problems for Konami – a factor that could be further exacerbated by Hideo Kojima’s absence from its ranks.
With that being said, there are a few options that Konami does have that could work, but with caveats. Simultaneously, there are others that the studio would be hard-pressed to bring to the current generation of gaming hardware, despite their potential, as they would need quite a bit of work and may not be profitable for the studio.
What are the constraints that Koami could face with each potential title? Which one of them could be the one that serves its purpose best? That’s what we’re here to figure out.
What Could Go Wrong?
It’s quite tricky to consider the cons of remaking any title from a franchise that has brought a smile to so many players over the many years of its existence. Each Metal Gear Solid game has something to love about it, and is sure to have at least a few fans who would swear by what it brings to the table.
In such a scenario, dashing those hopes about a potential remake is a decision that Konami is sure to consider very carefully, just as we have done. But with years of great video games behind us, and a lot of innovations made towards creating experiences that pull players in, and the big budgets that have made such an evolution possible, there are a few choices that would be quite challenging for Konami if it decides to attempt to usher them into the current era of gaming.
An obvious choice would be 2010’s Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, considering that it features Naked Snake as Big Boss, showcasing his journey after the events of Snake Eater while also touching upon The Boss’s story after her time in Russia. It would be an excellent option considering how eager players are to see more of Naked Snake, who will be sure to have many moments of sheer awe at his eventual evolution into Big Boss, and the events that led him there. It’s quite a logical choice on paper.
However, we must point out that it was a game made specifically for the PlayStation Portable, and as such, would require quite a bit of work to bring it to life on current-gen consoles while ensuring it maintains the narrative, visual, and sheer overall quality of Snake Eater.
Releasing it as a remake would require that the studio recreate its comic-book cutscenes, for starters, to better match the expectations of an increasingly discerning crowd of current-gen gamers. That’s especially true after the stellar job that the studio has done with respect to Snake Eater.
In Kojima’s absence, that may not be a necessity but will require a lot of careful evaluation on other fronts. While those cutscenes were a smart choice for the PSP, considering its low storage and processing power, it’s hard to imagine how they would bring value to the experience on a modern console.
Along with Portable Ops, which was a prequel to Peace Walker, Konami would be hard-pressed to create a remake that includes enough quality-of-life changes and additions to both titles to make them worthy of a remake. It would also require a lot of effort and resources that could be better spent remaking other popular titles in the franchise.
Ruling out the two titles that would continue Naked Snake’s adventures leads us to another couple of games that may be viable options, but perhaps far too ambitious.
The Sins of the Father
If continuing Naked Snake’s story as Big Boss isn’t an option, Konami could choose to pass the torch of carrying the Metal Gear Solid franchise to his son. Solid Snake and Big Boss’ rivalry is certainly an option, with a remake of the original games: Metal Gear from 1987 and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake from 1990.
Those two games are among the shortest in the series, and repackaging them into a single release would be a dream come true for many in the Metal Gear community. Solid Snake’s eventual confrontation with his father is also a solid narrative choice, pun intended, since it allows Konami to tie things together with Delta and potentially bring the entire saga full circle.
However, given that both games are over 35 years old at this point, the studio is likely to face even more constraints as its PSP titles require the reworking of its assets, animations, and perhaps even story elements on either title to make them worthy of a current-gen remake.
That’s a problem that’s more prominent with Metal Gear Solid, considering it was a 1998 release that simply cannot match the quality of modern releases in terms of its gameplay loop, controls, and the way it presents its story. A remake would be a very ambitious undertaking, bringing in sweeping changes that let the classic title resonate with a generation of players who take superior quality in their games for granted.
Breathing new life into such an old classic is no small task, especially with the weight of expectation from a passionate fanbase. It’s the kind of project Konami would have to approach with extreme care.
While Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is also a great choice for a remake, considering that it does showcase the final days of Solid Snake’s life, it wouldn’t be much of a remaster, considering its stellar gameplay loop and graphics. As the final chapter of a very long story, it could be a viable choice later down the line, but would fall flat without an early adventure involving Solid Snake to familiarize players with the character before witnessing his swan song.
Guns of the Patriots is also rumored to feature in the Master Collection Volume 2, making a remake quite redundant. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain could also be ruled out for the same reasons, although there’s a case to be made for a remaster that includes the cut Episode 51 content as a bonus mission. However, re-release just for that bonus would not make sense, not to mention the fact that it’s a fairly recent game, and the amount of effort it would require to update would be far too ambitious.
Should Konami Take A Road Less Travelled?
The simple answer is yes. While past or recent titles involving Naked Snake/Big Boss could be safe bets, a studio like Konami would be better served by taking it slowly and working on a game that won’t make them change things drastically.
While it would be great to see Solid Snake introduced to the modern generation of gamers in the same chronological order that the franchise has established, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is the option that best balances the risk versus reward ratio for the studio.
Kojima’s absence from its ranks is sure to be a factor that takes some value away from any attempts to remake Metal Gear Solid. But given how good Delta: Snake Eater turned out to be, Metal Gear Solid 2 is something that the studio could potentially handle, applying all of the lessons it learned from the recent remake to recreate the title, bringing Solid Snake into the fold.
Although it may feel abrupt to jump to Solid Snake’s fourth outing, from a development standpoint, remaking Sons of Liberty makes the most sense. The visuals still hold up incredibly well, and it’s hard to believe they date back to 2001. While the gameplay would need modernization, Delta has already proven that the team is capable of such an upgrade.
Its linear progression could even work in its favor, allowing Konami to focus on a complete remake without worrying about having to add additional level sets to Big Shell, the stage for the game’s events.
While we would love a proper remake of the original Metal Gear Solid that brings Solid Snake into the fold with all of the power that current-gen platforms offer, his fourth adventure seems like a more practical and logistically viable choice for Konami.
Or maybe, just maybe, the studio has already weighed the pros and cons of reintroducing Solid Snake through his very first mission in the original 1987 Metal Gear, and decided that revisiting his debut adventure is a risk worth taking to reignite interest in the iconic franchise.
It’s still too early to know for sure, but it would be exciting if Solid Snake became the centerpiece of Konami’s next wave of remakes. Then again, the studio could always throw a curveball and surprise fans with something entirely different, perhaps even a long-awaited sequel to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
But for now, we’re going to just enjoy Naked Snake’s origin story and hope that Konami does the character’s legacy justice in the years to come.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
